James reidy



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JAMES REIDY, OF CORK, IRELAND.

IMPROVEMENT IN MACHINES FOR BREAKING STONES AND OTHER .HARD SUBSTANCES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 33,493, dated October 15, 1861.

To aZZ whom it may concern:

Be itknown that I, J AuEs REIDY, engineer, of No. 27 Cook Street, in the city of Cork, in that part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called Ireland, have invented a new and useful Machine for Breaking Stones and other Hard Substances; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full and exact description thereof, reference being had to the sheet of drawings hereunto annexed, and to the letters and figures marked thereonthat is to say:

My invention relates to machinery or apparatus for breaking stones and other hard substances, such as are used for inacadamizing roads, ballasting railways, concretes, and other like purposes, and which consists of one or more hammers suspended on vertical guide-rods and rising and falling on a certain description and arrangement of cutter disposed beneath. The hammers are raised by suitable cam or tappet apparatus and suffered to fall by their own gravity on the stones beneath, the stones at the time resting on a peculiar description of cutter-box, in which they are broken and driven through between the cutters by the force of one or more blo ws of the hammer. A suitable supply of the stones or other hard materials to be broken is maintained in the cutter-boxes by feedingrollers or other suitable means. The stones or other hard materials to be broken are previously of a suitable size naturally or are rendered so by being roughly broken by hand or otherwise.

In the drawings, Figure l of the sheet of drawings annexed represents a side view of a machine constructed according to my invention, and Fig. 2 a transverse section of the same through one of the cutter-boxes. Fig. at represents a sectional view of the longitudinal cutter-bars, showing their arrangement more fully; and Fig. 5 represents a similar sectional view of the under cross-bars or cutters shown in dotted lines in Fig. 4:.

a a is a strong framing of wood or other suitable material, the end frames being strongly connected by balks b b, which carry the cut ters and receive the whole force of the concussion of the hammers c c 0, which in the machine represented are eight in number. The number, however, may be varied, as required. These hammers are of steel or steelfaced and of about sixty-five pounds weight, which weight I find suitable for the purposes generally required. They may be driven at the the rate of about twenty-five strokes per minute, and are each forged or fixed on the end of a rod or stem d. These rods are fitted in suitable cross-guides e f, the lower one 6 resting on suitable supports g g, raised from the bed I). The supports g also form guides for the rods d, which have each two crosspieces h taking into guide-grooves in the supports g. The seeveral cross-bar guides e f are severally fixed to the longitudinal stretchers 2' 70. On each rod or stem dis forged or fixed a collar or projection Z, by which the hammer or hammers are raised, this being eifected by cams or tappets m traversing from end to end of the machine. Thes'e lifting cams or tappets are fixed and arranged on the shaft 02 so that they each take effect in succession and at regular intervals on the several hammers by the rotation of the shaft n. It Will be readily understood that the hammers are lifted by the tappets m and released suddenly, and consequently fall with great force on anything placed below them.

The tappet-shaft n may either be drive by strap-rigger 19 direct, as represented, or by means of wheel-gearing, as will be readily understood. The gearing at the opposite end of n is for the purpose of communicating motion to the feed-rollers, which are to-be arranged on one side of the bed and driven at a slow rate and according to the nature of the materials under operation. These rollers are a series of rollers forming an inclined plane, over which the stones are carried by their motion, being all in one direction, and conveying the stones from a supply maintained at a higher elevation.

R is the cutter-box. (Seen in section at Fig. 2 and separately represented in plan at Fig. 3.) It is firmly fixed in the bed I), and consists of a series of steel cutters r r, radiating from a center, as seen in the section, Fig. 2, but arranged parallel to each other in the direction of the length of the machine. These cutters have their sharp edges adjusted in a segment of a circle described from the same center as the lower end of the hammer, as seen in the section, Fig. 2, so that the blow is likely to take equal effect on the whole series. These cutters are of cast-steel and suit- 

